Snow Angels
by Nanatsusaya
Summary: It was incongruous, what the three of them were doing, with the Apocalypse raging on all sides.


The Winchesters were arguing. Castiel figured they spent more time doing that than getting along lately. He could replay both sides in entirety—Dean insisting on filling the gaps with side-trips to do 'ordinary' jobs, Sam insisting they should be spending every second on the Apocalypse—and thought of their bickering as white noise, the soundtrack of Castiel's new life. He looked at the snow, soft and white and deep across the backyard of the abandoned rural house where they stopped to investigate a haunting. He thought it beautiful, especially in the dim dawn light with the trees casting long silhouettes over the flawless white ground.

When nothing but cold and cobwebs greeted them, the tension snapped from being stretched too far with no physical outlet. Castiel had walked out into the yard a bit and turned, snow clinging to his pants, in time to see Dean hit his brother in the face with a lump of snow from the rail of the porch. Sam grabbed his arm and they both lost their balance on a patch of hidden ice, landing in a heap of limbs in the snow banked at bottom of the stoop.

"Son of a bitch," he heard Dean swear as they struggled to disentangle. Sam gave up first, making it easier for Dean to shift to the side. "What the hell, Sam?"

"What the hell, yourself," Sam shot back, but he didn't sound particularly annoyed anymore. From a few feet away, Cas merely watched the exchange, putting his hands in his pockets. His fingers were tinged with cold, and he suspected that was a bad sign. Something to ponder when he wasn't with his human friends.

Dean was sitting in the snow, which must have been cold, but he was already damp from the fall. Little patches of white clung to the side of his jacket, but he didn't try to brush it off. The brothers were looking at each other, having a silent conversation. Castiel guessed it was an apology, and they seem to have forgotten momentarily that he was directly behind them. Sam gave a low, tentative chuckle finally, lifting his head slightly to feel the ice forming in his long hair with one hand. He laughed again, and lay back, suddenly splaying out his arms and legs. Castiel could see Dean raise an eyebrow at him, the second one following when Sam did it again.

"Really, Sam?" Dean was answered with shower of snow from his brother's quick hand.

Sam shrugged. "Why not? There's no one around and we're already going to be soaked thawing in the car."

"Yeah, okay. But I'm naming mine Zach and drawing a dick on its head." Dean lay back and mimicked Sam's movements.

Castiel closed the short distance between them, bending over the two hunters uncertainly. He was relatively sure since Dean was doing this deliberately that Sam had not had some kind of spasm, but the entire meaning of the activity was lost to him. "What are you doing?"

"Snow angels," Sam answered happily. He was sitting up, snow covering every part of his back, head, and arms. "We used to make them all the time when we were little around Christmas."

"Snow angels? But aren't you cold?"

"We…uhh…didn't have a lot of entertainment as kids." Sam tried without much success to shake the snow out of his hair.

Dean rolled his eyes and sat up to examine his work. "Freezing your ass off is exciting when you're nine and live in a motel that gets one channel on a good day. This is no good, you can't even see what it is after all your flailing around ruining the surface."

"I seem to remember you doing most of the flailing," Sam replied, but there was no animosity left in his tone.

Minus the Winchesters, the impressions they left in the snow did look vaguely like Christmas tree topper interpretations of angels. Castiel liked their innocence, even if they looked nothing like the real thing. The brothers had both moved to a fresher patch of snow, dropping down to try again. He followed, sitting carefully to watch and think about snow beyond its physical qualities. It was incongruous, what the three of them were doing, with the Apocalypse raging on all sides. Perhaps they even looked slightly ridiculous if anyone was watching, but Castiel liked the warm pink on Dean's cheeks and Sam's smile too much to give more than fleeting consideration to such things. It was probably also cosmically funny for him to even think of making a 'snow angel', but he wanted to nonetheless.


End file.
